1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a man-clothing-environment simulator quantitatively measuring capabilities of textile materials, such as clothing materials, to transfer heat and moisture between human skin and an external environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
A textile product is a porous aggregate of polymer materials with diverse physical and chemical structures, and its function is determined by properties of polymer materials, a structure of the aggregate, and an amount of air contained in the aggregate in a process of forming the aggregate. As the textile industry evolves into a high-tech industry, high value-added textile products with sophisticated functions are being developed. For clothing materials, comfort, texture, and sophisticated functions must be considered when producing high-value added clothing.
Comfort is often referred to as pleasantness, which is classified into thermal pleasantness and sensuous pleasantness. The thermal pleasantness is affected by a microclimate of an air layer formed between the body and clothes. The microclimate is determined by the capabilities of textile products to transfer heat and moisture generated by the human body. For general textile products, pleasantness related characteristics greatly affect consumers' preferences. When it comes to high-functional textile products used in special environments, the pleasantness related characteristics may even determine health and life of the human body.
Sensuous pleasantness refers to a way that a textile product feels when touched, such as soft, rough, warm, or cool, and determines the quality of the textile product. The sensuous pleasantness not only affects heat-and-humidity related characteristics but is also important for producing and evaluating highly sensuous textile products.
The capabilities of textile products to transfer heat and moisture are dependent upon comprehensive technology identifying and, by extension, quantifying interactions between the textile products and the human body as well as physical characteristics of polymers constituting the textile products and characteristics of an aggregate of polymers. In particular, it is necessary to develop a technology for measuring and evaluating heat/moisture transferring capabilities before developing high value-added textile products.
Conventional skin models used to measure the properties of clothing materials to transfer heat and humidity are usually disposed horizontally and designed to measure the properties under test conditions of standard state.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,259 discloses a sweating hot plate apparatus for simulating thermoregulatory behavior of human skin. Since the sweating hot plate is disposed horizontally, it fails to properly simulate the relationship between clothes disposed vertically and the human body.
Micro-porous textile products, which are moisture-permeable and water-proof, have increasingly been used in sportswear and leisure wear. Under normal conditions, the micro-porous textile products can maintain moisture permeability. However, when they are used in the polar regions, moisture freeze in the fabric, thereby blocking micro-pores of the micro-porous textile products. Consequently, the intended moisture permeability of the micro-porous textile products disappears.
Therefore, it is important to be able to set test conditions in consideration of how and in what environment textile products are used. However, since conventional skin models measure moisture permeability at consistent temperature and humidity, they fail to fully reflect changes in the properties of textile products to transfer heat and moisture according to rapid environmental changes.